In 2011, civil rights icon Ambassador Andrew Young and Martin Luther King III founded Bounce TV, the first free broadcast network targeted towards African-American audiences. The network offers original content, popular documentaries, live sports and classic movies. One of the original shows that just premiered this fall is “Finding Happy.” Keisha Taylor Starr, the Chief Marketing Officer for Scripps Networks and Bounce TV CMO, joined “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes via Zoom along with Kendra Jo, the showrunner of “Finding Happy,” to discuss the new show and its hosting platform.
Interview highlights:
“Finding Happy” writer and showrunner Kendra Jo on the series’ relatable story:
“Yaz, our lead character, gets to the age of 36. On her 36th birthday… there’s this ‘age of reckoning.’ [Co-creator Angela Wells] has also been a practicing psychologist, and she said there’s an age of reckoning where we get to an age, it may not be 36, but within that window where we start to think about our lives a little more, like, ‘Wait a minute.’ We started taking inventory of the…societal standards that we think we should have met, that we haven’t met. And Yaz is one of those individuals who hasn’t checked those boxes.”
“It’s kind of like realizing you’ve been asleep behind the wheel, and according to your parents, according to even your schooling, you should have got the man, or the career, and had the kids, the family – and she has none of those things… We’re going with her on this journey of discovering what really makes her happy. You know, she hasn’t really focused on herself, and some of us can attest to how we’ve put others’ needs and desires before our own. And so Yaz has come into that realization within the show of, what are the things that truly make her happy, and what does she have to do to pursue those things? And even if she acquires those things, do they really make you happy?”
Intimate storytelling about real Black life:
“I’m from the South, and I just love Southern everything, and I just feel like Black women from the South are just a special being in themselves,” said Jo. “I’ve always wanted to tell stories that are based in the South, because typically – and I’m not saying this is always the case – but typically whenever stories are told from the South… it’s either slavery or civil rights. It’s never a case where it’s a Black woman-leading Southern comedy.”
“Watching ‘The Breakfast Club,’ watching ‘Pretty in Pink’ and ‘Sixteen Candles’ and things of that nature, I’m like, ‘Man, they’re just being. It’s like a slice of life.’ And that was what I really, really prided myself with ‘Finding Happy.’ It’s funny, as of late, a lot of what we’ve seen as far as from the Black perspective or from Black narratives, I guess you could say it’s been a lot of trauma… I just wanted to show a balance of, well, maybe there’s a different side of our life, that’s just a slice of life. I learned that from Toni Morrison, where she said to remove the gaze; don’t make it about the oppression of someone else. Let people just enter into this space and just see what it’s like on a regular Tuesday.”
The founding philosophy and ongoing mission of Bounce:
“Ambassador Young and Martin Luther King III have always been advocates for equity and access, and so when Bounce was launched in 2011, there were only a handful of networks for African-Americans, and they were all on cable, meaning that people had to pay to have access to them,” Taylor explained. “There was really a tremendous void for Black viewers, especially since about 25% of African-American homes did not subscribe to paid TV at the time. Bounce filled this void, and it became the first ever free and over-the-air network designed for Black audiences. And so I really believe that Ambassador Young and Mr. King were instrumental in helping Bounce get created, and we are certainly very proud that they are among the founders.”
She went on, “We like to think that we’re very different from other networks in the space. We have so many amazing stories to tell as a people, and so we’re very thankful for all of the other networks who are also dedicated to telling our story. But with Bounce, we are really interested in telling stories that appeal to multi-generational audiences where viewing can be a shared experience, and we double down on our commitment to that type of programming, and really, our original programming, which brings great and amazing talent like Kendra Jo to us, to lead that effort.”
“Finding Happy” can be streamed on Bounce TV at https://www.bouncetv.com/show/finding-happy/56211/.
